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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 


Soulmate, Myself:
Omega Point

Kairissi & Elenchus:
V

 

 

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Homecoming

"After traveling awhile, we come home to a familiar place, only we often look at it in a new light. Were things different while we weren’t here? We experienced so many new and different things while we were gone. [Are we a new person coming back or were we just blind before? The compexity of life] is so vast that we can experience widely diverging aspects of it and imagine that we are in different realities; [yet, life is a unified whole, and the 'good and bad' are just closely-related aspects of a fractured perspective]… We are like minnows [in the river of life] that can never plumb the length and breadth of the water." Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

 

 

Elenchus. Deng’s “Homecoming” paragraph reminds me of what happened to us a long time ago -- after our “great misunderstanding.”

Kairissi. How do you see it, Ellus?

E. I’d been traveling, went far away, was gone for some years. And then I came back.

K. (softly) It was the day that we spoke, but… you didn’t want to talk to me.

E. During those years away, I never thought of you… I didn’t allow it; I didn't want to… I had shut you out for good and forever… so I thought.

K. (silence)

E. I was so angry that I didn’t even know I was angry. I'd repressed it all with a steel door. During all those years of travel, I can’t remember being angry; not really.

K. (softly) Only I can "get to you"; for better or worse.

E. I had no intention of talking to you when I came back; it never crossed my mind. But then a phone-receiver was suddenly put into my hands – they thought I’d want to talk to you. And now, out of the blue, without warning, there you were – talking to me!

K. You had no chance to say no or to put up any defense.

E. I was taken completely off-guard.

K. (softly) What do you remember of those moments?

E. It was so long ago; I hardly remember a thing from that whole year… but I remember what you said, and how I felt, in those few minutes.

K. (silence)

E. The first thing I noticed was that you were warm, teasing, and friendly toward me… the way it used to be with us… before the “great misunderstanding.” You were acting as if there’d never been a problem; as if those terrible years, when you wouldn’t look at me or talk to me, never happened… and now I’m starting to boil and rage inside; and I’m saying to myself, “What right do you have to act like we mean something to each other?”

K. (silence)

E. I was so angry during that phone call, and even I was surprised by the anger. "Why should I be angry?" I subliminally asked myself. "This girl means nothing to me -- didn't I just spend several years not thinking of her even once?"

K. During childhood, my own prickliness and anger would often lead me to reject you. I tried to let you know not to come near… I succeeded too well.

E. During those years away, I had known several nice girls; one or two I considered to be “perfect,” as they offered everything a man could want. They were intelligent, educated, cultured, gracious, and charming. And I assured myself: "I certainly don’t need you anymore."

K. (softly) You tried hard to believe there're "many pretty fish in the sea."

E. But on the phone that day you continued speaking -- which was surprising in itself to me, I mean, that you would talk to me -- moreover, you attempted to engage me in a teasing and delighted manner. I didn't know what to make of this, and I felt my inner rage rising to meet this "new" you.

K. (silence)

E. I began to notice, however, in spite of my anger, at a deeper level, something else going on: "It’s happening against my will… I don’t want this new feeling… I want to be angry with you."

K. (softly) The ego was trying to repair itself.

E. And soon, after only a few minutes, I would relish virtually hanging up on you, but, even so… in those moments of your speaking, something new, unbidden, emerged from the locked prison of my heart.

K. (very softly) And what were you feeling?

E. It will strike you as strange, but... I still recall... suddenly... it’s as if there’s stardust in the air -- it's like everything’s sparkling … and then I'm finding it hard to breathe -- "What's wrong with me?" I thought. "I don't want to feel this way! I don't want to feel close to this girl!" -- and it’s starting to feel like suffocation… I’m not saying too much at this point… my head is pounding… no coherent thoughts get through…

K. (silence)

E. And then... certain images come to mind... it's all so unexpected; and unwanted; but...now I’m being taken over by a perception of “homecoming” – in the midst of my suffocation, the word "homecoming" went through my head... You seem so… so… familiar… so… just-like-me… It's such a sweet feeling, like total harmony, total intergration... and during those moments with you, for the first time in my life, I felt whole and complete, the way they say eternal life will be. This strange pleasure far supersedes the simple bio-eroticism of boy-meets-girl. It's not like that at all but so much more... (sighing)...And now it's so wonderful to be near you again; and I can't believe I'm thinking these words because I want to be angry with you… but I'm overruled by another, deeper part of me as an intoxicating sense of “coming home” -- coming home to you, the girl I want to be angry with -- takes me under, overwhelms, immobilizes.

K. (softly) But, Ellus... you had known me... and so I was familiar to you.

E. No... I don't mean like that. I'm not talking about a superficial knowing as Landon said he knew Jamie. This was different... this was like the heavens opening... and I "met" you and "saw" you -- for the first time.

K. Gibran's "first sight."

E. It really did seem "like the spirit that moved on the face of the waters, from which flowed the heavens and the earth." This was not an ordinary "coming home" to the old neighborhood -- nothing like that at all. I'm talking about a deep soul-sense of finding your place in the universe; that kind of cosmic "coming home."

K. Ellus, had you felt even a small portion of this familiarity with the "perfect" girls?

E. Not a particle. With them, it was just normal boy-girl dynamics, just ordinary bio-thrill. I mean, I wanted it to be more. I tried hard to make it more. One of them was so “perfect” that I berated myself for not having deeper feelings for her. I wanted to want her much more but I couldn't dredge up the fervency. "How could I not want this perfect girl?" I thought; but, I didn’t.

K. (silence)

E. And then, with you on the phone -- on the phone yet! I wasn't even near you! -- without trying, without even wanting the feelings, I am mystically bludgeoned by a girl I considered to be dead-and-buried, my last choice in the world, and below last choice.

K. (softly) It was a “sword in the stone” moment, a mystical experience for you, Ellus. The heavens opened, as you said, and a celestial light, so to speak, with stardust adorning the air, shone upon one girl, one particular girl… the unlikely girl... the one you’d sedulously put away, the one you made speeches to yourself about being glad to be rid of.

 

Restatement:

‘sword in the stone’ moment – oh, it’s you
 

We have referred to our friends John and Mary so often in these pages that, surely, we know them by now. But do they know each other? They choose each other on the basis of “you have a good sense of humor” or “you’re a hard-working person and could support a family” or “you’re very attractive and I feel good around you” or “I like the way you encourage me when I’m down”; and other benefits to "make me happy." All these things are important, but, if we enter a contract simply on the basis of comfort-thrill-dependability, existential crisis, that internal sense of emptiness, will soon be visiting. What is the problem here? Should we not desire a “good resume” from a prospective mate? All marriages "made in heaven", eventually, will enjoy these fine attributes but cannot, will not, be grounded in them. What does this mean? It is not possible to find, or to determine the identity of, your destined one without a “sword in the stone” revelation. You will not recognize her unless “the heavens roll back and a dove delivers a scroll bound with golden thread.” Forgive the over-dramatic reference, but the fact remains that unless divinity reveals her to you, you will never find her. Your true mate might be someone you knew in the past, but wrote off as a bad mistake. Your true mate might match the reference in Dido's song, “I understand why you can’t talk to me again.” Your true eternal mate might have made you so mad -- as I’ve written elsewhere -- with “the now legendary vituperation, the chasm-wide divisions of the heart, the unbridgeable parting of ways, the astonishing misreckonings, the radioactive and high-handed unkindnesses, the outrageous accusations, the unreachable forgiveness, the scornful turning away from natural law written upon the tablets of the heart, the high crimes and sins against holy romance -- so severe as to render its victims unwilling, with an oath, to entertain any future rapprochement, in this world or the next.” And yet, when the “sword in the stone” moment happens for you, none of this earlier chaos will matter. But, what about those stellar attributes and the perfect resume?

All this will come, in due time, as each becomes his or her true self, allowing the inner riches to shine forth. Getting all those perfect character traits, strangely, is the easy part, as we'll all be well developing ourselves in the next world. But, each of us will be allowed the "sword in the stone" event with only one particular person in the entire universe - "oh, it's you!"

 

 

E. But I was not ready to surrender to this "message from heaven." That would come some years later. I was still far too angry.

K. We’d been talking only about 2 or 3 minutes, it seemed, and then you abruptly ended the conversation, acted like you had to leave – I would say -- you cut me off. It felt like hanging up.

E. That was my intention. I wanted you to feel cut off, I wanted you to feel that I didn't want you...

 

it's never gonna be over between you and me

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)

 

Linda: “It's never gonna be over between you and me!! - you get it?!"

Bruce: "Get out of here! You hear me?! I don't want you! Get out! It's over!"

“Here’s the deal. You talk, I write.”

“That’ll take forever.”

“You going anywhere? I'm not.”

 

Editor’s note: The great psychologists speak of “sacred combat” between lovers. It happens when one loses the will to live, or to live authentically, with the other not allowing the self-destruction. In Linda’s martial art, Bruce finally met his match. Yield to overcome.